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[00:00:07]

A men's Gaelic football team are put through their paces like training sessions throughout the country. Theirs is a mix of well-worn drills and good natured banter.

[00:00:18]

Oh, OK. When you get the second call and just turn on a kick. Except this isn't Ireland. The thing is, while we've all heard of gay clubs, the length and breadth of the country, unable to field teams because they're younger players have emigrated.

[00:00:38]

It recently occurred to me that the flip side of this must surely be that clubs abroad are benefiting from this outflow right next year, which is why I find myself on a balmy autumn Wednesday evening in a very noisy public park on the outskirts of Stockholm, watching Sweden's top Chieh football team, the Stockholm Games, as they put in some light training ahead of the upcoming weekend's final One-Day tournament of the annual Scandinavian Championships. If my hunch is correct, over the next few days, I'll see some of the positive impact of our young people's leaving firsthand.

[00:01:23]

Taking a break to observe his team-mates who dominated the competition of late, is one of the club's founders and it's undoubted driving force Dubliner Phillip O'Connor.

[00:01:35]

This is the final training session before we all get on the bus and drive down to Malmo on Friday. Even on that, try and take this bike, this trophy that we've won for the last two years. So we're going for three in a row as good players with far better. Is this where you normally train? Yeah, it's usually not this noisy, but, you know, this being the end of the summer now, we have people there so full of hot air balloons.

[00:01:53]

We have an Australian Rules team. We have a guys playing Frisbee. A part of this is the problem that we have, that we've basically got the same level of stages as darts in this country, which is, you know, it makes it very, very difficult to find places to play. The city are going. They let us play here, but you may very well find somebody with a hot air balloon in the middle of our pitch before you get second.

[00:02:15]

Another co-founder, the Gael's currently injured midfielder, is untrimmed born Nigel Scullion, who amidst the understandable optimism, has some last minute words of caution. Right.

[00:02:26]

That is our last session before the weekend. And that's the last time I suggest we can. And we all know the position where it's best it's ours to throw away. And that's what we definitely don't want to do. OK, so what work really hard to be in the possession world and it's the best possession they've ever been and got into the last round where 100 percent of the money we've never had. A season is a third season any the time, except we haven't had a clean sweep.

[00:02:51]

We've always lost one of the tournaments in the year. OK, we want to take all three this year. We want to go down here. That's the game and make sure that we do come back up with a clean sweep.

[00:03:01]

Logistics, meanwhile, are the responsibility of third co-founder Forward and Kerryman.

[00:03:06]

Colin Courtney was taking the bus to Steve at four o'clock on Friday. From the I think the driving isn't over yet, but I think it's not my first. And so straight into the cauldron, I'm going to have a strong team of six teams in the championship, just going to go to three. And it's the first time it's the biggest one we've had so far, the biggest tournament. So it's going to be tough that there's going to be a lot of strong teams down there because stuff plays.

[00:03:31]

Let's step up to. No. OK, not that I'm talking about after Vince blondness neck, I'm that they both come, you're going to help them out against almost Vince. There will be valley Friday morning and it's breakfast time in the O'Conor stucco household.

[00:04:14]

I said, I don't want you and your boyfriend, Phillip, a freelance journalist who's lived in Sweden for over 13 years.

[00:04:24]

And there seems to be the case with many of the club's menfolk.

[00:04:28]

He came here originally for the love of a good woman for three years.

[00:04:35]

So that means you come this morning as he and his Swedish wife Maria are getting their two young daughters ready for school. He recalls the club's early on certain days.

[00:04:46]

I was actually about 10 years or so before we Sasseville. I've been here for 10 years. We set up about three years ago and we tried beforehand a couple of times to set it up. But again, you didn't have the sort of the level the Irish community here. You had lads who were walking at night who weren't able to try weren't able to do these things. So it took a long time for all the bits to fall into place, because not only that, you're living in a new country.

[00:05:05]

You don't know how things work. Where do I get a pitch? OK, I want to change that football pitch. That's sort of 600 metres. How do I book that? What do I pay for? What's it going to cost me? I bought it as a private person. Or do I have to be a club CEO to be able to answer all these questions for us? Because this society, it works very, very well, but it works very, very well because there's a million and one rules before you do anything.

[00:05:24]

And these were all the things that we had to do. And like everything else that I had to get to know, people I had to find, you know, 10 or 12 other people who were interested in doing this with me and who were willing to commit to this with me. And they took a long time before I met people who were in a position to be able to do that.

[00:05:36]

I which is said I just gave a half as well. And it's just I don't know.

[00:05:43]

And then what happened was it's kind of like, you know, Pythonesque thing whereby I put up a poster of one of the pope's and it was looking for players to play Gaelic football. And Colin called and he did it at the same time, the people from the Gaelic football of the Gaelic football, People's Front. And then we said, OK, we had very even email addresses were very, very similar. So he said, look, there's no sense of setting this up in competition, so we'll get together.

[00:06:02]

So Colin is over here working for one of the Swedish banks as a consultant. And with him, there were several other Irish lads. Those guys wanted to play as well. So we all ended up getting together and we sort of put it in those towns that we knew, you know, through the posters in the pubs. And eight of us turned up for the first time at the artist where we were trained. And the other night I thought American football goal.

[00:06:20]

And we got together. And it was amazing. It was like we put out the cones and we started doing hand pass and drills and literally was like somebody had just press rewind. I brought it back to being in 16 at the article repitch just and the Malahide rolled.

[00:06:31]

And it was just it was incredible to see with all my heart. All the real interest for me came when I had children first because I figured, OK, you know, they're growing up in Sweden, so they're going to get the Swedish power. They're going to get their mother's heritage and culture. They're they're not going to get Moyane living in Sweden unless I do something about it. And Gaelic games is a big part of my upbringing. I mean, the day I was born, my father went to Croke Park that afternoon.

[00:07:03]

Like, that's always been a part of who we were. That's where we went. We are kids. So my earliest memories is my mother tongue in the Dublin sky from my neck for my father to bring me down there. And I want them to understand that not necessarily that my children never play the games, which is that they would know where I came from. And the only way to do that is through a club.

[00:07:19]

Well, it all depends on how they behave.

[00:07:23]

Are you aware of the role of the recession in Ireland has played in the Stockholm Games?

[00:07:28]

I'd be very aware of it because I tend to be the point of contact. Like I'm kind of very visible. I get emails, you know, once a week, once every two weeks. And I say, look at you know, I heard about the GAA abroad. You know, can I move to Sweden? Can I learn the language? Will I get by with just English? Is there building jobs over there in the carpenter? I'm a bricklayer, whatever after fellows will say.

[00:07:47]

Oh, well, I played junior football and Khudair ah I played Holland and Galway or whatever, and that's their connexion to the whole thing. So I'd be very, very aware of it.

[00:07:55]

It's funny, I have nightmares of, you know, waking up one morning.

[00:08:00]

There's only being Courtney laughter. We can't be on TV and all that kind of thing. But you know, you'd love to see it get better for people. You'd love to see people be able to return home. I almost feel guilty when I'm taking a player like Brendan Egan. Brendan was over here study and he'd want to see you. Good to corporate DCU. He's only played for sloganising in the championship. We had a four year last year. Top class players.

[00:08:17]

I'll never turn down fellows like that. That said, I would be delighted if they had the choice to go back home again, you know. So at the same time, I'm praying for a very, very quick recovery in Ireland. I'm praying that there's still a few fans want to stick around and play football with me. I have first aid kits, clothes and balls and Dortch, for the most we probably know about anyway because I want to get away as fast as possible so we might do these things with me that afternoon and those going by bus to Malmo gather at the Dubliner pub, the team's unofficial HQ.

[00:09:05]

Hey, hey, hey. Jesus, we just got to make a sound like a native. How long does it take to get to man who's driving back to me and say we should be there by six hours? I think. Where are you playing tomorrow about where you're playing baseball? I haven't really said no, but I'd say if we we're going to get a better game play, I'll be up and. My name is Brendan Grant and I'm from Bunna Slope.

[00:09:42]

I've been in Stockholm for 14 months now. Um, I lived in Australia for two years. So it was actually tomorrow, three years ago that I left Bandsaw to move to Australia. And then I met my girlfriend picking tomatoes in north Queensland in the middle of nowhere, actually. Really. And, uh. Ten months later, I was on a plane to Stockholm. I found it a bit hard to make friends here when I first came over, and I didn't want to just be going to the pub every weekend desperate to find someone, know it's going to give me a job like, you know.

[00:10:15]

And it was true, Phil. He always told me that we're not it's not going to be a safety net for you, but it's going to be a springboard for you that the club is going to try their best to find accommodation for you. And it's good to get talking to the guys that have Swedish wives and and girlfriends. And they've went to all the stuff before. And it's good to get a bit of advice off them. And it's also like I started to miss home an awful lot like and just to have a bit of crack with the lads as well and make some friends.

[00:10:46]

It's very important to me because now I don't really miss home as much as I used to know. And I feel more like Stockholm is is home for me now. And I'm happy enough to be involved with the club and happy enough to stay here for for the long haul anyway. Showing the boys that you walk around the globe now. So. Farmers like me calling my name is Sean Koslo, I am from a place in Goa called Wondering, I come off here about three months ago and then working for Swedbank at the moment, and I started playing football.

[00:11:23]

I flew over on Sunday and I started playing football lechuza. I was kind of got lucky because I was living with Colin Courtney and he's one of the managers, the team. And he said, come on, come on down, let's play football. I just wanted to go travelling, want to see the world to see differently something different. And I was told there's a job for me in Sweden. And I just jumped out straightaway, said, why not?

[00:11:46]

I didn't want to go somewhere, somewhere like Australia, us at the moment because I just want to go somewhere different, somewhere away from home somewhere. Some strange, obviously, and see a completely different lifestyle, obviously. And the irony, of course, is that you're playing, you know, playing football and desire to. Yeah. Do you think you'd stay I would ever go to L.A., but I would like to do a lot more travelling as well in the future.

[00:12:10]

So I do love her. I do love I'm a big homebody. I do like being home, but I don't know what the future blinds me. I'll take it as it comes and see how we're going to. So when was the last time you played a game of football? Oh, it was under 14. We pay for my dive. It would be an encouraging comment. My name is Michael Doretti. I come from Foxworth's Mayo and I moved to Stockholm in October of last year.

[00:12:43]

Did you know about the girls before you landed? No. I need to say the more predominant Irish immigration sports had clubs, of course, New York and London and Australia, and then in those clubs, didn't know the Scandinavian had a league. Why did you leave in the first place? I graduated from UCD in 2011 from architecture. It's kind of funny. When I started architecture, it was one of the main was very prosperous jobs. But by the time I left, pretty much there wasn't any chance of getting a job in Ireland, per say.

[00:13:21]

And well, the thing was that I had met a Swedish girl in Dublin. She's also an architect and she was doing at Erasmus and UCD and we were together for seven months. And then we're deciding where I should go, where to move to. And then it just made sense to try Sweden. It's. This is that's how I ended up. I came out here without any work. It took me about seven months to find a job here.

[00:13:49]

It's very difficult when you don't speak the language, especially in architecture. All the consultants work through Swedish and but yeah, eventually I started my job last month, so I think I'll be here for a while. As we near our destination, the rivalry between the girls and their hosts for the weekend bubbles to the surface, I'm looking forward to it now, especially the fact that we're going down to Panama, because there's always been a little bit of history between the two clubs since we started.

[00:14:19]

They were some of the top dogs when we came along and we knocked them off their perch, I think, but it didn't really fancy it a whole lot. And for me, the first time I saw the competition, I saw the last tournament. Was it? No, no. I think of Jesus. If we're still able to show for the time we got down there, that will be something else to win the tour title on this pitch.

[00:14:35]

If we make it into the final four, that should be should be good enough. I think that'll be good enough. But at the same time, we've we've more or less been the dominant team the last two years, but we've never had a clean sweep. And as I say, you haven't got such a history with my and more obviously think that they're going to win the tournament on home soil. They want that we won their tournament the last time we were down there.

[00:14:54]

And of course, we'd love to just take it off and we'd love to win all three tournaments to say, OK, who is the best team in Scandinavia or do you want to have that argument again, you know? Further down the road, because the men and women are over there, all right. The men already said, I'm not going to go talk to you. All right. There's thing that I need to get back.

[00:15:25]

Yeah, they're over there Saturday morning and the Stockholm girls arrive at Malmros Grounds. They're in charge here.

[00:15:31]

What happens is we play in a tournament basis race because of the geographical location, an away game when you're playing for your club. And Dublin is a bus ride away for us. It's a bus ride a 500 kilometres to Malmo, so we can't play home and away. So we play a selection of tournaments. So with two groups of three. So we play two group games, a semi-final and a final. The group games are all 20 minutes each.

[00:15:51]

They're ten minutes a half at the same time at the semi-final. And then the final itself will be 50 minutes a half. So that's up to 90 minutes. And it can go on. You know, either way, if you add in the extra time here and there, it's usually about 100 into football. You end up having to play Gaelic football, go back home, never played more than 60 Minutes. And intercounty players play 70 minutes. So we're playing a half an hour on top of that again.

[00:16:12]

And we wouldn't really be up to the levels of fitness that the top intercounty players at the top club players have. So it's a massive physical demand.

[00:16:19]

Almost immediately, the men find themselves in the belly of the beast with their opening game against their arch rivals right from the beginning.

[00:16:34]

It's a close and hard fought back. You get the great, great, great ball, but go. It's a smaller pitch. We play with eleven a side because there's no pitches big enough. We tend to play an adapted soccer will be pitches because I Gaelic football pitch is huge. One hundred and forty metres long and your standard soccer pitch has been one hundred 105 metres and at 50 metres makes all the difference in terms of where you place your team.

[00:17:02]

So we play eleven a side or not. There's an awful lot more running to do.

[00:17:08]

If you want to find space and it goes right up against you, you have to keep moving your position all the time. If you stand still in European Gaelic football, you're dead. You can't afford to make a mistake. You can't afford to give the ball away because know one kicking the ball to could be up the other end. And instead you score the other team score on you. And you also don't have the time because it's only ten minutes each half to be sort of you know, you can score two or three or four points down.

[00:17:29]

You're dead in the water. By giving their lives by in the second half, it's still nip and tuck, but stuccoed leading by just two points and only a couple of minutes left on the clock. Mallo launch an all out attack with just one thing on their minds.

[00:17:49]

A winning goal of. Now, trailing by a point, the Gaels quickly regrouped. Right.

[00:18:16]

Oh, yeah, that's hard to pick up.

[00:18:26]

It's a close run thing. But in the end, just to stir the Gaels need.

[00:18:33]

Yeah. Meanwhile, the Cale's ladies team also got off to a winning start. The latest football team was amazing, I mean, it was one of the most miraculous things I've ever seen in sport. We just had to look for the guys. And the next thing I got this angry phone call one day got OK, I've seen your new website, and there's nothing for the women. Are you not setting up a women's team or what? The amazing thing was, I wasn't an Irish guy.

[00:19:12]

And the other end of the line, it was a Swedish girl. At the other end of the line.

[00:19:15]

I have to get the passes a little bit more correct. All right. Don't just. My name is on guard. I am from the south of Sweden. I moved to Stockholm about two and a half years ago, and that time I was coming from Shanghai. I lived in Shanghai for almost five years and I started playing Gaelic football in Shanghai. Yes, it's everyone. I'm very surprised to hear that. But I was a student in Beijing for a year and I was moving down to Shanghai.

[00:19:44]

I didn't know anyone in Shanghai, really, so I hadn't. I had an Irish friend in Beijing and she told me, why don't you get in touch with the Gaelic football team in Shanghai? They have a really good crowd and they will take good care of you.

[00:19:58]

So I just went on and I played for almost four years in Shanghai, so I got back from Shanghai and I really wanted to continue playing Gaelic football. So I started Googling, trying to find a team in Stockholm. And there was nothing there's really nothing on the Internet. And I thought, this is so strange. I found a team in Gotham Burg. There was one in Copenhagen that can read anything about the Stockholm team. So I found an email address for a guy in Gothenburg and he gave me Phil's email address and his phone number.

[00:20:30]

And then I set up my baby's team to get a good feel. And that's how it started.

[00:20:37]

Compared to just two years ago, I think we've come really, really far. I think we have around 20, between 20 and 30 active players. We have a mix of Irish and Swedish girls, and we have a great spirit in the team and we keep recruiting new girls all the time.

[00:20:55]

Today, we are playing very well.

[00:20:57]

We played two games and we won both of them so far.

[00:21:00]

So, yeah, we're really improving.

[00:21:07]

By the end of the day, both the ladies and the men's teams have made their respective finals, but before entering the fray for the last time, well, taking a well-earned break, some of the founders contemplate the impact the club has had of the playing field.

[00:21:23]

You know, a perfect example out there is Lisa Burton. She was here, I think she was 10 or 12 years. And she always said whenever the girls started, that was the first time that she came together with the likes of Charlotte, like you were living here the same time and didn't really know Lisa.

[00:21:35]

Lived around the corner from me for two and a half years. And we never give them examples of a football team taken together.

[00:21:41]

You know, not only that, like the amount of e-mails we get from from people coming over from Ireland and it just creates an instant social network besides the football.

[00:21:49]

I mean, there's so much more that happens with the club. I mean, for instance, I got my car through the clubs inadvertently. There's a lot of stuff that is not related to anything whatsoever that happens to the clubs. I think of people getting jobs, people getting houses.

[00:22:03]

People got an accommodation the past almost a day on the road and it was moving to remember the moving apartment, which is I'm going to have to get a move on. Families said don't. So then Senator, I said, got to a beer and a whole bunch of pizzas and the lads will do it and you can take the money you were going to get and just, you know, throw a few quid in the club. Kitty, Ferdowsi's longer.

[00:22:19]

And the next day the crowd latched onto the door and they were all right, ready to go.

[00:22:22]

And they moved. Everyone was really sure how to play.

[00:22:25]

You know, they also broke every single one.

[00:22:36]

As luck would have it, both teams now face their deadliest foe. The tournament hosts Mountney in their finals. And it's ladies first. This is the first one we are doing right. Sorry. Yes. Despite some early setbacks, the will soon turn it around.

[00:23:26]

Go, go, go, go. In the end, the women run out comfortable winners by five points. At their very first attempt, they're now Scandinavian champions. Then it's the turn of the man. OK, 30 seconds to do whatever it feels different from the day. Having got to the final means. Whatever the result, they, too, will go back to Stockholm tomorrow. A Scandinavian champions always ready to talk about these finals. This time we know the pressure's off with one overall challenge.

[00:24:32]

So let's let's put it up with no fear whatsoever, no fear at the start of this game, less every final. We are nervous and really easy shots at the start. Let's get the ball. Let's be careful. Let's be directly or through the middle of them and let's get the ball over the bar and start with complete and utter confidence, not one ounce of it in any single man of complete and utter belief in your own ability, a complete confidence that when you get that ball, we're going to just be going to, you know, OK, this is a fine line.

[00:25:04]

Here we go. In a repeat of their opening game, the gales are once again up against hosts Malmo, and they're determined to maintain their seasons 100 percent clean sweep records. Oh. Possibly point the boy who has a second time round the game is equally hard for. For me. Obama can't exactly there, that's a great ball to finish this year. But in the end, Malmo once more proved no match for their old enemy. And Stockholm emerged victorious by a healthy margin of two goals and a point.

[00:26:23]

It's been a phenomenal day for the Gael's, having achieved all they set out to do on the pitch, they know that office, there's a night celebration ahead still to negotiate. All right, so we got this collection of hands we have to get back or pay for what we want to take the trophies in the van, are we going to put them in the booth and bring them in the front? I'd rather do that. I don't want to go back in the cabin until Sunday morning.

[00:27:05]

And with everyone feeling the various effects of the day and night before it's time to head home.

[00:27:15]

Is everybody here? Yeah. Some scattered trophies back. I've been telling them. Before long, the soothing hum of the engine leaves only those up front, Michael and a noticeably hoarse Philip awake to assess the weekend. The first time we drove home from Malmo was actually the first tournament. We won a really short Charton DiGiovanni because, you know, you're driving home happy. It's better to be driving home with three in a row after winning a half mile after not losing a game all year after the girls win in every game and taking their championship to this.

[00:27:50]

It only struck me this morning exactly how big this is when we started off, eight fellas in front of the American football goalpost. Yeah, I have never in my wildest dreams did I think we'd even get a team out on the field. Obviously, it's a great achievement for the club and it does show on the journey because it is quite a it's quite a trek up to Stockholm from minor. But what did you think of the whole thing when everybody got together and started really going like I was guy when he started playing a couple of weeks ago, but now there's a great atmosphere down there.

[00:28:22]

So I really enjoyed the weekend, rather. I mean, none of the other great thing is by winning everything, all those other clubs who are down there yesterday are going to want to knock us off our perch the very next time they see us. And that makes us raise our game again and again and again. And at some point it will happen. At some point it will happen. But that's not going to be the end of the world.

[00:28:40]

No. For everyone is just as strong competition, you know, I think the future is safe in your hands. Michael Mayo, you know, you trust me, first of all, to choke at the second half. So happy day, somebody once said to me is, you know, when you're winning all these tournament, really winning a Scandinavian championship, you know, it's one of those feelings that's better than sex. And I said, well, you know, if we're going to compare sex and Gaelic football, then you're doing at least one of them wrong for it.

[00:29:09]

It's it's just to be sitting there are just these are such fantastic moments to have your mates in this van driving up knowing that every step you run on, every pass, you find out over the sideline on every score you missed. But it's all come down to this. And when we needed to do it most, which was yesterday that we delivered, that we were doing it all season and we've done it together. This is a fantastic feeling.

[00:29:40]

At the Capitol Tuesday evening and some of the girls and their families meet up for an end of season celebratory barbecue at Phillips Hamburger Burger, which is one of those rising up from the bottom, as well as a whole bunch of other groups in the area.

[00:30:14]

It's very hard to get them to move from A to Z. Doesn't matter. You can have them barbecues and free beer, though. All the candidates who run go to the hotel and don't mess around with the glass of fame tonight. But you're in here for to because because are dealing with really tough talk. I don't really know what you're telling me. He was pretty easy on us. All right. You probably had a little black book because one of the few things I can say is I got the answer.

[00:30:51]

I don't know what it's like to fire shots. I don't want to hit the hit. The crossfire fell to him and he knocked. So I came out of my sisters.

[00:30:59]

It doesn't take long for the conversation to turn to immigration. And that talk is by no means entirely negative of a lot of my friends have left. But some of them are still there unamendable at the moment. So they get like I went on like three weeks ago, I spent a week travelling and I'm just seeing everyone so have left the country, but nearly half my friends.

[00:31:21]

It doesn't matter if you are made to play in front of your clothes in Australia or America.

[00:31:26]

I, like all my friends, are playing to the border. Every every one of them was playing some. But one of my friends who was called to the Glory Squad, basically, he went off to Australia to play reports and he our ah stahmann basically whatever whenever they're down, just put my foot forward and he tries multi-line every match and they're all like they want him to stay like he wants to come home next year for them to go away, but not to offer them too much money for jobs and everything just to keep them there, just to keep the guy, just to keep winning trophies.

[00:31:54]

Obviously there's is like more young people come out of the jail, get stronger and a lot more more skilled from that is that sounds like you you're well educated and I think you're doing a fairly complicated job. You're a great footballer. And unfortunately, that means that you're not working for some company in Galway or in Dublin and playing for your club now. I mean, I'm very, very grateful to have you here. And Jesus, I hope they never let you go.

[00:32:16]

But it means that, you know, the club's back home. I mean, some guys like you and I was up in there and county regard recently, and every night we were on the way home, we'd be driving by the football pitch. And there's lovely football pitch up there. Jesus, lads, we give our right arm to have it here. Never. I kick a ball. And I was home a couple of weeks ago as well over the summer in July and talking to the friends and the clubs around like they're really struggling for numbers and clubs that have been to Gibraltarians a couple of years ago.

[00:32:39]

And we're going to you feel the team, the man I'm all will probably be back home now if the economy was better and stuff. I've been here for six years, and I think the first two or two and a half are tough. It's hard to Swedes are great and they're lovely people and everything. But the language barrier at the start, you go to a party and it's hard to make yourself hard to get your humour across and get your own personality across the lads here.

[00:33:07]

I'd say that's a good thing, but it is hard at the start. And I think after two and a half years when I was here, when we were in a position to maybe try and I'm thinking about going back home, then everything kind of went wrong with the economy. And and I'm from Waterford and I wouldn't want to move back and live in Dublin. We need to move to Dublin. If we were both to get work. If I move home, I'd want to be near my family and friends.

[00:33:30]

And at the moment I think what if it's one of the worst hit areas? And now that we have our first child as well, the benefits for children over here are just so much, so much better. I think, in terms of sometimes they, like a lot of us, were forced to leave like homes in April when I was asked to leave. But when you are forced, leave the country for your wife, your children are the economic thing.

[00:33:52]

When I came here, I think you get your age opened up to to the system that is here where you are taking your your parental leave. And at the time you have offered. It's unbelievable. Medical leave. Exactly. The child care as well. As I said, I have brothers and sisters at home and it's costing them a hundred euro a week to put the children in the kindergarten over here.

[00:34:13]

As I said, it would cost us one hundred euros a month for the two kids at a cost of 60 or to bring the kids to the GP. Whereas here you walk in and jump out of your pocket. All them, all them things are, like I said, moving in every side of home. But there's so many other doors have opened up because of that. And while you do have that missing home, and that doesn't go away, even if you compare.

[00:34:35]

What you get here and you know in your heart that what you get here is much better for kids.

[00:34:40]

The other thing is the company left and you know, all of the kids when you're all together and we're all single and that doesn't exist anymore. So what I don't miss as being at home, what I miss is living what we made in Dublin in 1996, 97, where we're all over having to crack, because the fact of the matter is that none of my friends live that way anymore.

[00:34:57]

They live nowhere near they can't afford or couldn't afford to move to where their parents, where they live opensource, know they can't afford to sell their houses because they wouldn't get anything for them. So essentially, you know, if I was to go back to what I miss, it doesn't even exist. So it's another no everything. You want to tell me exactly what you weigh that up to. What we have here now, you know that we have a Saturday.

[00:35:16]

You want to see the big smile on your face, but we're almost always able to take it up off the grass above the building. It's been a real Eye-Opener of a week for me.

[00:35:27]

I've seen up close a perfect example of a G8 club abroad benefiting from and also helping many of those who have, for whatever reason, left Ireland for pastures new over the past few years. It's a conundrum Philip fully appreciates.

[00:35:45]

The club's back home are destroyed, but the converse of that is the clubs like ours and clubs abroad in Luxembourg and in The Hague and in Australia and in San Francisco, they have any amount of players. We at a tournament this year in Stockholm, we feel at 53 players, 53 players. That's 211 assorted men's teams. And I think it was either two or three ladies teams. We had players coming out of the woodwork, mama a few years ago, had maybe thirteen men on the panel and it's over 30 players.

[00:36:11]

There's a whole new women's team that didn't exist last year. The devastation that's happening to small communities at home is actually unfortunately, it's benefiting us and the European and the global JTAC.